If you were previously on the fence about Lucy Letby’s guilt, have the Thirlwall findings swayed you either way?

My eldest was born at CoC in 2018 and I always remembered this young blonde nurse who made me feel so uncomfortable that I refused to be separated from DS until we went home. Years later I now know why.

Yes, people who murder babies are particularly vile.

Really? Why?

Except that this isn’t what actually happened. Perhaps if you take the time to listen to the podcasts that play recordings via transcripts of the enquiry you will understand better what actually happened. For example, the reference to some babies could have been saved isn’t about medics not being able to save them, but to the fact that if the people concerned had acted sooner and investigated the concerns being brought to them, Letby would not have gone on to kill or injure some babies.

We can agree to differ.

I’m a mum of a premature baby born at the Countess of Chester hospital.

In 2011 my DS was born at 27 weeks, he was very tiny around 665 grams. At around five and a half weeks old, he developed NEC and, in the hope for surgery on his bowel, was moved to Alder Hey. He sadly died before they could operate - he was 41 days old.

He had only been at Alder Hey for 15 hours, the rest of his short life had been spent at the Countess. Lucy Letby wasn’t around then. Staff gave him too-rich milk which he could not tolerate and that likely contributed to his bowel condition which led to his death. Was this an ill-thought decision? Was it negligent and inexperience? Or were they trying their best to bring him on? He might have died anyway, he was very fragile. If he’d been born at a different hospital, he may have lived. I will never know the answer to this. But his incubator was in nursery one, right next to the sink.

All I can say is that he was born and looked after in the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital - and he died and Lucy Letby was not working there then.

Am I reading a different report? The babies murdered by Letby were poorly, but otherwise expected to survive and thrive. There may well have been babies in her care that had difficulties, but these were not the babies she was convicted of murdering.

I've always thought she was guilty. She should have been stopped sooner on her murderous sprees. I hope the management are held to account.

@Oftenaddled Read the report - The baby was still alive when she brought the cold cot in and plugged it in. Still alive. Your comment about autopsy is totally missing the point. If a nurse brought a cold cot in while I’m trying to spend the last hours of my baby’s life holding them close and saying goodbye, I can’t imagine the psychological damage that would do to a parent.

The father had to forcibly order Letby to get out of the family room as she was making a nuisance of herself trying to get to the baby. She wasn’t the nurse allocated to the baby at any time, and the allocated nurse was horrified at Letby’s behaviour. There is nothing that can excuse this behaviour, nothing.

And all collapses, which is where the opportunity for cherry-picking really ramps up.

I think people are often a bit unclear on that point.

Doctors accused her. Senior nurses and managers found the accusations unfounded.

So depending on your perspective, you can say that management rightly protected her from an unfounded accusation or management wrongly protected her from a well founded accusation. (Or comment on what they should have done anyway). But it's the doctors (some of) those who doubt the conviction accuse of scapegoating her, not the managers.

But all deaths should have been included in the statistical analysis, surely? The babies that Letby was convicted of murdering also had congenital abnormalities, prematurity and sepsis.

You must have read a different report to me. She was actually protected to a very large extent by the hospital, far from scapegoated by them that the Letby fans would try and lead us to believe.

I’ve always believed she was guilty, and although Thirlwell wasn’t determining the criminal allegations I’d be surprised if the last day or so was positive for Team Letby. Which is good, hopefully she rots.

It's an extremely selective account. She was taken off drug administration after the dosing incident in question, not in a previous job, at Chester, I think in 2012. She was working with a senior nurse when they made the error. Unfortunately medication errors aren't extremely unusual.

Three years later, there does seem to have been some tension around her being away from her own charge and being in the room where another child was dying. There is also testimony that she swapped responsibilities with the dying child's nurse at that nurse's request. The shift manager seems to have been unhappy with her, but not to have put in an incident report, so we don't have a contemporary account of things

As against that you have her fellow nurses, her managers testifying that she was generally a good, conscientious and enthusiastic nurse, texting her for advice when she was off duty and asking her to take on extra shifts when there were particularly vulnerable children on the ward. So there's a lot to think about in terms of how you weigh up each element.

No idea if LL guilty, but sadly it’s clear that hospital managers could only be useful to the NHS as organ donors.

Thirlwall says in terms of responsibility there’s ‘no difference between being a manager in the NHS and a senior manager or leader of a company listed on the FTSE 100’.

She’s right. Pay etc very similar, if not better in NHS. But you get the sack for being shit in the private sector. It’s all about delivering quality.

Corneas, anyone?

I previously thought she was guilty. I still think she is guilty. However, the Thirlwall Report was not about whether she was guilty or not, it was about systemic practices and culture that need to change to safeguard patients, most especially tiny vulnerable babies. The report is damning. Those who were suspicious of her had a duty to do more. It astounds me that the number of babies dying was so much higher than in previous years yet nobody seems to have raised an eyebrow for some time. The management seemed more concerned with bad publicity than anything else - although I'm not sure there is any worse publicity than having several babies dying in suspicious circumstances.

As always, my sympathy lies with the families who must now be wondering of their baby could have been saved. I thought the demonstrators outside were completely insensitive and inappropriate.

No there weren't. Check the Thirlwall evidence. Retrospective audit. No contemporary concerns. See for example she evidence of Dr Yoxall and other staff for Liverpool at the Inquiry. They are very clear about this.

You are missing the fact that some of the babies Lucy Letby was accused of killing also had autopsies citing congenital abnormalities and sepsis, and that there were certainly more collapses when Lucy Letby wasn't on duty, cited at the trial, at Thirlwall, and in alleged police leaks.

The paragraph you've quoted doesn't in any way undermine the argument that the events LL was accused of were cherrypicked.

Yes, she worked at The Women’s Liverpool.
And there were concerns. Definitely.

A cold cot is used to keep a body in good condition for autopsy, so this is the last thing you would do if you were trying to cover up a murder.

Whichever nurse said this - the parents said they weren't sure until Thirlwall - most likely did think the child was dead, since there was a great deal of confusion around his resuscitation.

Never thought I’d be writing this but initially thought she was guilty but having recently been thrown under the NHS bus anything is possible.

Also just to add it’s not just junior staff if anything they were believed with impunity and the mean old witch (me) took the fall 😢

No, they hadn't. She only ever worked in Liverpool, apart from Chester, where nobody working with her had any concerns - confirmed at the enquiry.

After she was arrested, they reviewed her shifts in isolation and brought information to the police - thought to concern four tubes being dislodged, not necessarily on or by babies she had anything to do with, but while she was on shift.

The CPS have declined to press further charges so clearly - and unsurprisingly - this didn't meet the evidence threshold. Certainly it would not normally be a police matter at all, that a baby dislodges a tube

Yes - there were two teams of insulin experts The two experts who have left disagree with the other team on approached to the case, but still agree that the two babies Lucy Letby is accused of poisoning with insulin are unlikely to have been harmed deliberately. Those were the only cases involving insulin so they wouldn't be commenting on the rest.

They still stand by their own work, and it is still part of the CCRC submission.

Letby should have been removed from her job simply for her behaviour towards the babies parents - one of the babies was being held by the parents in their final hours, and Letby pushed in a cold cot, telling the parents to put the baby down in it before the baby had passed away.

Paragraphs 3.68 and 3.69 of the Report are terrible reading. She is a monster.